


Interlude V

by AnnetheCatDetective



Series: Interludes [5]
Category: Murdoch Mysteries
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-07
Updated: 2020-04-07
Packaged: 2021-03-01 19:42:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,140
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23532508
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnnetheCatDetective/pseuds/AnnetheCatDetective
Summary: Glen and Jack catch up after Glen and Llewellyn's first introduction to the book club.
Relationships: Jack Walker/Llewellyn Watts
Series: Interludes [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1679167
Comments: 25
Kudos: 41





	Interlude V

“So.”

There’s a lot of weight behind that ‘so’. Glen leans against the counter, the shop otherwise emptied out, and levels Jack with a look that has a fair bit more behind it.

“Is there something you’d like to say?”

“Detective Watts.”

“Detective Watts.” Jack leans against the counter from his side of it and meets Glen’s gaze, steady.

“All right, all right, I can be a big enough man to admit when I’m wrong.” He caves at last. “He’s a little different when he’s not at work, isn’t he?”

“I don’t know. He’s more of himself. Who isn’t?”

“Seems like your friends all took to him.”

“They took to you, too. Will you stick around? I know we’re not Owen’s crowd.” He smiles. “But it’s better than being alone. I’ve spent enough time alone to know.”

“Aldous is one of the usual hosts… I may as well.”

“How is it working out, staying at his place?”

“It’s…” Glen comes to a halt, chuckling and shaking his head. “Aldous is… well, you know him. You’ve seen his house.”

“It’s not as much as Owen’s.”

“I never lived with Owen. A couple times he put me up, if I had too much at a party-- once because I passed out in the guest room with one of his other guests.” He bobs his eyebrows, before his smile falls away into something thoughtful. “But I never _lived_ there, it’s different. Staying at Owen’s once in a blue moon was a little… getaway from regular life. Now Aldous _is_ my regular life. I mean-- Aldous’ house, is… Have you seen his upstairs guest bath?”

“Once, he told me to go upstairs instead of waiting around for the downstairs. The pink tub is… very Aldous.”

“Very Aldous.” Glen laughs. “No, I like that about him! He’s… _big_. And he’s… I like that about him. But it’s never been me, before. And now I keep my razor on a pink marble vanity, by a pink enamel bathtub and I… I don’t know. It’s an adjustment. But… I’ve got work now, that’s something. The job interview I mentioned, it was this morning, and… I’ve got the job, I could… I can look out for myself. It’s just… soon, to move house again. I’ll get some time at the new job under my belt and then I’ll look for a place, before he’s sick of me.”

“It’s Aldous, he doesn’t get sick of people. He won’t get sick of you.”

“Still. I’ll be, you know… fine on my own two feet. And you, you’re changing the subject on me, I came here to talk about your detective.”

“He’s a good man. He’s earned my trust, Glen. And he… he needs this. To get to be around people. He’s never had that before, he’s been alone… I had to invite him. I had the power to give him something none of us ought to be without. I wouldn’t have been able to call myself a good man if I didn’t invite him.”

“Don’t try to tell me that’s all you’re giving him.” 

“He’s had some of my time as well. I-- no, not all. I like seeing him.” Jack admits, his face warm. “I got to cook for him, a couple of nights ago, at my place. It was-- I’d like to again. I mean, I almost… he came by today, for lunch, which was… good. He’s… he’s made his intentions clear.”

“What’s he like?” Glen laughs. “I wouldn’t have been able to picture it, when the two of you were making eyes at each other between the bars, but if he has half the appetite for you that he has for food--”

“Oh, stop.” He reaches across the counter to shove at Glen’s shoulder. If his face was warm before, it’s on fire now. Llewellyn had been… unrestrained, to say the least, over dinner with the book club. Every little hum and moan had jolted right through him, and dessert had been nigh unbearable, the desire to reach for him, _do_ something, taste some shadow of his enjoyment… and the thrill of just watching him, just seeing him _be_ like that, how badly he had wanted to urge him on to more even as it had threatened to undo his own composure. “He didn’t make his intentions _that_ clear. I mean-- clear, just… He’s kissed me.”

“That’s _all_?”

“We haven’t been courting very long.”

“Jack, you were halfway ready to offer yourself to him in _jail_. Now you’re telling me you haven’t done anything?”

“I was _not_.” He huffs, though the look Glen gives him is unmoved. “I was not. I had bigger things to think about than being... hard up for a good time.”

“Gotten _any_ ‘good times’ since the breakup?”

“ _No_. Not that it matters and not that it’s any of your business. Some of us do think about more than our libidos.”

“Ouch.” Glen places a hand over his heart, leaning over the counter. “All right, all right. But you were thinking about it that night.”

“I wasn’t-- not really. I mean, yes, I liked him, but it wasn’t… it wasn’t until I saw him again that I really thought… I mean, have you seen his hands?” He sighs. He does just need someone else to agree with him on that point. The long fingers, the broad palm, the delicate wrist, the whole picture highly pleasing… and the way they _move_ , how tactile and expressive he is, and how well-kept. Jack just needs someone else to _see_ it.

“They’re all right. Not my type exactly.”

“You’re _joking_ , they’re perfect.”

“So why haven’t you put them to good use yet?”

“I’m his _first_. Or, I will be. And-- is it awful of me, that I want to be his last? That I want to be his only?”

“It’s not awful of you to want what you want.” Glen says, his tone suddenly serious-- suddenly kind. “Maybe what you want is what he wants and maybe it’s not. But you’re not a bad bet, Jack Walker, for a man who’s not into running around. Maybe you’ll want the same things. He seems the type to play it safe. Sorry, that came out-- I don’t mean you’re just ‘safe’, I mean I know you care about that. I know you put up with… I know how hard it was sometimes to care about Owen when he was incapable of safe, seeing him get into trouble you couldn’t keep him out of and… having to worry about whether you might get caught up in his trouble next time.”

Jack nods, waving away his concern over offending. Owen had liked to poke at trouble, yes… but to be fair to him, when he was with Jack, he didn’t let that trouble reach him. Jack has gotten into trouble before, but it wasn’t with Owen-- in fact, Owen had… It’s funny to think, they were on Owen’s street, which now he supposes would have put him in the jurisdiction of Llewellyn’s stationhouse, when they were stopped. But Owen hadn’t let him fall under suspicion, then. He’d made his own choices, but he never presumed to make those choices for anyone else, he’d never asked Jack to take those risks. Even when he’d encouraged him to live a little, to be bolder and freer, he’d never asked him to face those dangers with him, which he had not signed on for.

Not that that stopped one from worrying.

“He’s unversed, that’s all. I owe him consideration-- _time_. If he’d only wanted to know what making love was like once, we’d have done it, but he wants a courtship, and I want it to be a proper one. He’s been proper with me… and he’s so charming sometimes, Glen.”

“Charming? _Detective Watts_?”

“ _Yes_ , Detective Watts. Llewellyn-- his name’s Llewellyn. He told me-- The police took a photograph of me, out of Owen’s house, and--”

“An _intimate_ photograph?”

“Not like that, but it was intimate enough. Anyway, he brought it to me, after… after everything. He’d told me, just seeing that picture, that he’d… before we met, it made him want to know me. Well, he said it better than I did, I think, but can you believe?”

Glen reaches out, tilting Jack’s face to the light and looking at him. “Maybe, I’d have to know how you looked in the photograph. But… you’re not bad-looking. I might have made a pass at you when we met, if you hadn’t been Owen’s beau then. But knowing you, it’s probably for the best I never did…”

“Well, thank you.” Jack rolls his eyes, pulling away.

“I meant me, not you. I might have broken your heart.”

“You flatter yourself.”

“I might have! What, you wouldn’t even have thought about me?”

“Sorry, you know I have a weakness for brunets.” He laughs. 

“Cursed with these fair looks.” Glen snaps his fingers. “Really, though, do you want to know a secret? I probably would have made a pass at you, if it had been summertime… Ill-advised as that pass may have been, and for so many reasons.”

Jack blinks at him. “Is there a whole subset of men I never imagined who find freckles fascinating?”

“Freckles? No-- why, who’s told you they like your freckles?”

“Llewellyn does, thank you very much. He was very charming about that, too. He told me he found them _distracting_.”

“I just don’t feel any particular weakness for brunets, that’s all.” He chuckles. “Your hair gets a little lighter in the summertime, a little more head-turning. In my humble opinion.”

Jack makes a face. “It gets redder.”

“What’s wrong with that?”

“You try growing up a ginger boy with freckles and tell me how _you_ like it. Strawberry blond does not count.”

Glen shrugs. “I like ginger boys. Ginger boys with ginger hair, even.”

“Aren’t you living with one?” He raises an eyebrow, but Glen just shakes his head.

“In his _guest room_. Not even the offer to share. He’s not interested, which… is a blow I’ll just have to weather. Oh-- but I do have his list.” He pulls said list from his pocket. “His housekeeper needs some sausage, minced beef, and a chicken?”

“Not sleeping with Aldous is a _blow_ now?” Jack takes the list from him, moving to get down the specified sausage and a chicken.

“Well… Look, I’ve been hard up myself lately. I was _this_ close to talking a very sweet man into an empty room when we had to flee the party, and he was too spooked to go home together. I mean, I’d have gone with him just to make sure he got there safe, and not gone in with him, but I don’t blame him not wanting me to, after…” Glen sighs. “After all that bad business. Not that we knew the worst of it then. Anyhow, I’m getting needlessly maudlin, it’s a poor look on an inveterate sex fiend.”

“Is that what you’re calling yourself?”

“Sure. Why not?”

“I don’t know… it doesn’t seem like you.” Jack checks the list again, before he sets to getting the required amount of beef minced. “Hard to reconcile the inveterate sex fiend with the maudlin errand boy. But whatever makes you happy.”

“Whatever makes me happy… is that the goal? Being happy?”

“Isn’t it?”

“Are you?”

Jack smiles, nods. “I think I am. When I’m with Llewellyn, I think… even with everything the world throws at men like us, I could just be happy with him. I feel like I could have a _future_. I mean, there are other things that make me happy in life, but this is… I always thought love was something that hurt you. You worry and you fret and you give things up and you fight about broken promises and someone’s always the one to love too much and someone else won’t love enough, and you put up with the hurt because it’s better than being alone, but… it isn’t like that with him. He’s sweet, and he’s careful, and he appreciates me, and he tries, Glen. He tries to get it right, even though it’s all new, and I just want to take care of him. If this is what falling in love can be like, then… I’ve been selling love short for a long time.”

“I’m glad I was wrong about him, then. He sounds like what you need. As for what I need… who knows. My entire life is in upheaval, I might as well figure it out now. As for what I need today--”

“Sausage, minced beef, and a chicken.” He pushes the purchases into Glen’s hands. “On Aldous’ tab, and he’ll settle with me at the end of the week as usual. Have a good night.”

“And you.” Glen smiles and nods, and heads out.


End file.
